Tuesday, 6 June 2017

On June 5, the CBI searched the residences of New Delhi Television, NDTV, owners, Pranoy Roy and Radhika Roy, in simultaneous raids in posh localities of Delhi and Dehradun. The raids were conducted in relation to an old case where anti-fraud branch of ICICI bank had lodged a formal FIR on complaint of one Sanjay Dutt, a shareholder in NDTV.

The allegations include illegal siphoning-off of part of the 375 Crore loan amount, taken in the name of a shell/ holding company, created specially for this purpose with no business and no income, where Pranoy and Radhika are Directors to their personal accounts, free of interest.

It is alleged that the then Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had been instrumental in getting the loan sanctioned for the couple, even without pledging sufficient security.

P. Chidambaram, Congress Leader
and Ex. Finance Minister

It was only after Sanjay Dutt had become hostile and threatened exposure, the loan amount was settled with ICICI and returned in one time pay back in 2009. Further and again with P. Chidambaram's intervention, ICICI settled the amount at 350 Crores with the couple, foregoing not only the interest but even a substantial part of the principal. 350 Crores were then paid back to ICICI Bank by the Roy couple, by raising the money from a bogus shell company created by Reliance of Mukesh Ambani.

The raids exposed the hidden and treacherous transactions and through them the dirty nexus between the news channel NDTV, the then Congress Government, the top big Corporate bosses like Mukesh Ambani.

Prakash Karat, Leader of Stalinist CPM

This abortive exposure became politically devastating particularly for Stalinists, as NDTV owner Pranoy Roy is brother in law of Prakash Karat, the top leader of Stalinist CPM and the left front and cousin of Arundhati Roy, the writer pampered by the then media don Tarun Tejpal’s Tehelka, facing charges in incarceration for outraging the modesty of an adolescent girl, daughter of his friend and friend of his own daughter.

Tarun Tejpal, Owner, 'Tehelka'

It would not be out of place to mention that here that the top Stalinist leaders across party lines, had played pernicious role in Tejpal's episode, doing everything in their power to pressurize the victim girl and defending Tarun Tejpal. While Brinda Karat, Arundhati and all kept mum, Shoma, Manager in Tehelka and right hand of Tejpal, openly supported him till he got arrested. Kavita Krishnan, leader of Stalinist CPI ML Liberation, in her interview to NDTV claimed that no FIR be made as the matter is between two individuals. NDTV had played dubious role in diffusing the sex scandal of Tehelka. The ‘thinkfest’ in Goa, during which Tejpal molested the girl, was organized with assistance of the then governor and innumerable celebrities the world over were part of it.

Arundhati Roy, Author

Most shocking aspect of the dirty game was that Tehelka was being funded by quarry mafia of Andhra and Orissa, right at the time when it was publishing Arundhati’s articles against quarry mafia itself. Incidentally, Arundhati’s novel ‘God of Small Things’ for which she got Bookers’ Prize was published by Tejpal. It is he who explored his high connections in literary world to arrange the bookers prize for Arundhati. For her part Arundhati is part of the extended family of Karats and Roys both and beneficiary of these high profile connections.

The raids however once again brought to light the close but hidden nexus between the Stalinist left, the Congress and the corporate media of which they all are beneficiaries. Needless to say, that this criminal nexus remains and acts to the detriment of the revolutionary struggle where in turn of all such material favours, the Stalinist left leaders had held back the workers and the youth who follow them, from attacking the bourgeois establishment and the state under it.

The raids on NDTV however were not accentuated by any good intentions of the government. The right-wing hindu supremacist BJP government was seeking an opportunity to somehow gag NDTV for tis allegiance to Stalinist left.

BJP Leader, Sambit Patra

Last week, during a panel discussion on NDTV, it's anchor Nidhi Rajdan asked BJP leader and its spokesperson Sambit Patra, a participant in the discussion, to apologise or quit the show, after he claimed that NDTV is acting on an 'agenda'. Probably the incident had invited a provocation to the government to open up an old case against NDTV.

Even if we ignore the incident, there is no grain of doubt that the BJP government has taken a vendetta upon NDTV for its connections to the Stalinist left. Creation of shell companies and diversion of bank loans from them is a norm rather than exception. If illegality was to be punished, then action should have been taken against all shell companies and their beneficiaries, that would have gone in thousands. NDTV was singled out for oblique and nefarious purpose of gagging it.

The assault on NDTV is part of the deepening conflicts and cut-throat rivalry among the sections of the bourgeoisie, vying against each other to capture the political power. While Media and Stalinist left remain mere blind tools in the hands of the bourgeoisie, clinging to its left wing, the right-wingers are determined at their complete rout that they term as ‘India sans Congress’.

The right-wing government of BJP itself facing an overall crisis in economy and polity has no other option but to ensure the silence of all opposition against it.

As raids were conducted on NDTV, the Stalinists screamed loud. They invoked ‘freedom of press’ to defend NDTV, while simultaneously hiding the dirty nexus from public eye. Even the Maoist groups geared up to support the NDTV on false pretexts of defending the democracy.

Stalinist leaders who frequently used NDTV as a platform to publicise themselves and propagate their reactionary views and program, are inventing thousand pleas to support NDTV. Shamefaced and dumbfound at the exposures made in the episode, the scoundrels are claiming that their opposition to state action is not support for NDTV but is striving for democratic space.

The slogan of ‘freedom of press’ is ridiculous and devoid of all logical basis in case of corporate media run through billions. This is no ‘free-press’ but a corporate monopoly oriented to super-profits and driven by the lust for them only. There being no free-press, there can be no space for slogan of ‘freedom of Press’.

Freedom of Press is a slogan false to the core in relation to the big corporate media. It’s a cover up to keep the real role of corporate away from the eyes of public and to give it a subtle and popular color. Notwithstanding its demagogy and claims, that often include pseudo-left jargons, the corporate media, without exception, is nothing but the fourth column of bourgeois regime. It is trader of news and views, that sustain capitalism.

While all pseudo-left yells at the ‘Fascist excesses’, ‘Attack on Democracy and Free Press’, we should not miss the most important point, i.e. the nexus between this pseudo-left and the capitalist establishment. It is this nexus that has prevented the revolution, binding the workers and the youth to the regime of capitalists through the pseudo-left parties and media.

Defence of democracy in no way means the defence of Corporate media.

Democracy is nothing except the struggle of workers and toilers against the regime of capitalists and landlords.

Sections of the bourgeoisie may be drawn to the proletariat as it raises the banner of its class-struggle, of which struggle for democracy is an essential part. But to join the bandwagon of the bourgeoisie and bind the proletariat behind it, that Stalinists are doing, is outright betrayal to the cause of revolution.Ironically, the Stalinists who are most vocal in exhorting for defence of alleged democratic rights of corporate NDTV, have worst track record on this count to their own discredit. From mass murders of millions of Bolshevik revolutionaries inside and outside the Soviet Union and forging criminal alliances with butchers like Hitler and Chiang Kai Shek in the distant past, upto more recent ban on workers' strikes and firing upon farmers in West Bengal, to garner favour with corporates and investors, Stalinists have continuously trampled the democracy under their feet, wherever and whenever they could rise to power.As revolutionary Marxists, we must underscore the fascist nature of the assault upon NDTV not only to educate and arm the working class and the youth to effectively combat and defeat capitalism on its fascist turn, but also to warn the liberals, democrats and radicals that there is no escape for them from the jaws of fascism except to support the struggle of the proletariat against capitalism. To be sure it is not fascist bourgeoisie, but the bourgeoisie that has turned fascist. From here, there is no way back to bourgeois democracy. There is thus no question of towing to bourgeois democracy. The path ahead has clear inscription on it: Barbarism or Socialism!